Before Mario

How did Nintendo’s miraculous transformation come about?

Until the 1960s, Nintendo was a modestly successful company, which manufactured playing cards for the local Japanese market. Fast forward 25 years and Nintendo has become a world leader in electronic entertainement. How did this miraculous transformation come about? BEFORE MARIO will answer that question, through a richly illustrated overview of over fifty Nintendo toys and games, that represent this crucial period in the company’s history (1965 to 1983). Some of these toys appear here in print for the very first time. Together they show the path that Nintendo traversed, as it evolved into one of Japan’s most admired and valuable companies.

Written by Erik Voskuil, owner the world’s largest private collection of Nintendo products from the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, with a foreword by Satoru Okada, one of the geniuses in Nintendo’s first game design team and later manager of the R&D department, (co)designer of many Nintendo’s games and toys, including Game & Watch, Metroid and the Game Boy.